Beck's War The Civil War Correspondence of G. Breck Vol 1 & 2 (2005)

  

"Does the word conciliation frighten any of my readers, or excite symptoms of indignation, or taint of "Copperheadism? No restoration of the Union without it, mark that, and that's what we are contending for as soldiers, the preservation and maintenance of the unity and perpetuity of the American Republic. That, in a nutshell, was George Breck's reason for going off to fight in the Union army during the American Civil War. Druggist-turned-artillery officer was not interested in freeing the slaves. Indeed, he opposed Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, fearing it would only strengthen the Confederacy's resolve to fight to the finish.

That, in turn, would surely make it more difficult to eventually reconcile the two warring factions, Breck reasoned. And a national reconciliation, he contended, was, in the end, all that really mattered. But in Breck's case, there is something more - a great deal more - to be found in the 141 columns he wrote for the Rochester Union and Advertiser from 1861 to. First and foremost, they tell the exploits of the hometown volunteer artillery battery he eventually commanded.

Battery L, 1s New York Light Artillery, was involved in most of the major campaigns against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, including Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania and the siege of Petersburg. Breck's columns vividly describe the battery's harrowing battlefield experiences, amid some of the fiercest combat of the war. However, his columns are more than a mere recital of battle. Breck was, to borrow one of his own phrases, a thinking soldier.

Even as he faithfully chronicles the daily movements, personnel changes and other concerns of his battery - in sufficient detail that his columns serve very nicely as a history of the unit - he also tries to interpret for his readers the bigger universe of people, places and events in which his small battery orbits. And so Breck treats us to firsthand glimpses of such luminaries as Lincoln and Grant, Sheridan and Hooker.

We are allowed to eavesdrop on Breck's conversations with the "secesh" he encounters in the Virginia countryside; we are privy to the latest rumors heard at headquarters or circulating through the ranks. Even when stationed away from the field of battle, Breck finds endless subjects of interest. During the battery's stay in Baltimore, for example, we visit the stately monuments that Breck so admired, take a guided tour of a beautiful park where young "secesh" women make snide remarks about the "nasty" Yankees, and even learn the secrets of making "aerated" bread!

And always we hear about the weather. If Breck's preoccupation with the.